Category: Politics, Media, Press Freedom, Australian Government, Civil Liberties

Editorial illustration of a knight in tarnished rusty armour standing at a press podium with an Australian flag, while a remote island detention centre is visible in shadow behind him.

The Photo-Op Refugee: Australia’s Selective Compassion

· 1 Comment ·

Australia granted asylum to six Iranian footballers this week and the ministerial photographs were impeccable. Behind them sits a detention archipelago that cost taxpayers four million dollars per person per year to maintain, a Witness K prosecution that criminalised truth-telling, and legislation introduced the same week to ban entry to entire nationalities without individual assessment. Urban Wronski looks behind the photo opportunity.

· 4 Comments ·

“There’s a reflex in Australian politics that turns grief into ladder-climbing. After Bondi, the chorus demanding a Royal Commission has become compulsory. But the nation is being sold catharsis when what’s needed is law—and what’s on offer is legally hobbled theatre.”